Some medical excitement for me

We've had some excitement over the last little while with me and my pregnancy.

A week ago, I was exhausted. Not just first trimester exhausted, but even pore of my being was exhausted. I folded 10 towels then had to rest. I unloaded the dishwasher then had to rest before filling it up again. I washed 2 bathroom sinks and 2 toilets and needed to rest. It was just a really bad day.

By the time Stephen got home, I was barely able to move. Just as an experiment, I took my blood pressure. I wondered if maybe things were out of whack. Yeah, they were. The lower number of the blood pressure was fine but the upper number kept spiking. Between 143 and 158 over 75 all weekend.

I called Healthlink on Saturday to see when I should be concerned and the nurse said to go in to be assessed that night. I ignored her because I still needed to make supper then we were going to Monster Jam. (The boys loved it)

By Monday, I had received a fair amount of crap from my online friends to go get assessed. I called my doctor and she got me in THAT day. My blood pressure in the office was perfectly normal. She did however say that she firmly believes that I will have to go on something by the end of this pregnancy to control my BP, just nothing right now.

Then, a couple nights ago, I had fallen asleep in my recliner holding Nicholas. Nathan decided to come and sit with me too but he did it in a really rough manner. He ran at me, jumped and came down, full force on my lower belly with both his knees. I bellowed in pain, scared the crap out of Nicholas and used all my willpower to not throttle Nathan where he stood.

Through reading, I found out that the baby should still be nicely protected by my pubic bone. Still, my belly hurt like nothing else. The next morning, I was still in a lot of pain so I broke down and went into the ER. The nurses were equally concerned and even if the baby is fine, there could have been damage to my insides that would have occurred even if I wasn't pregnant.

My nurse in the ER was fabulous. She ended up coming into the room with a Doppler to see if she could find the baby's heart beat. She warned me that she may not find it and that didn't mean the baby was lost, just that it was still too small to be found.

She persisted. She tried angle after angle and moved the wand so many times. She pointed out what all the sounds were until she finally found the heart beat. I was beyond happy to hear that sound.

The doctor finally decided to grace me with his presence and as soon as I saw him I knew I should have a) left or b) insisted on a different doctor. I've dealt with this asshole on a few different occasions and he's been an ass every time.

He spoke to me like I was an idiot. He said that x-rays were out because I was pregnant. Well, DUH! He pointed out that there was no way the baby could have been harmed because of it's low position within the pubis. He wouldn't even think about an ultrasound or make a referal for an ultrasound. Even after I told him point blank that I was concerned also for myself and possible damage to ME. He poked my belly a couple of times and said that it is soft so there can't be any damage. OK, I just asked about it, he didn't have to reprimand me for being concerned about my own bloody health.

The topper on all of this was his insistance that there was no way to track the baby and it's heart beat because it is still so low and small. I told him that the nurse had found it and his face fell. He sputtered a couple of times then yelled that my bladder MUST have been really full and pushed the baby up and out of my pubic bone or I'm totally wrong on my dates. OK, I don't care which one it was, I heard the heart beat and Dr. JerkWad wasn't going to take that away from me.

He told me to leave a urine sample and to take Tylenol for the pain. I had to wait for the nurse to come back to get a label for my little pee jar so I got dressed and waited. When she came in, we chuckled together about how SOME doctors downplay and disregard the nurses' abilities. Those highly trained doctors would be lost without their nurses. I know many nurses end up covering a doctor's ass from time to time. I have great respect for nurses and little to no respect for doctors with either a God complex or an attitude of entitlement.

So, basically, I'm well, the baby's well and all is mostly right in my part of the world. By the way, the heart rate was 168 beats per minute. Some of my friends think this means a girl but Nathan was always up high like that too. He was always doing extreme sports in there so his heart rate was always through the roof. We shall see what comes out in August or September. LOL